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Monday, September 26, 2011

The Cost of a Good Deal

﻿ Back in 2004, I taught an English literature class to a group of home-schoolers. For my class, I needed to distribute some paperwork via mail, so I went to Staples to buy some envelopes.

Now, I could have chosen a small box of 25 or 50 envelopes that would have more than sufficed for my purposes (I only had 9 students). However, I noticed that the store was also selling a box of 1,000 envelopes for approximately five bucks. How, my brain reasoned, could I turn down such a deal? I'd have so many envelopes! Perhaps I could get into the secondary envelope resale market!

The picture above shows you how many envelopes I still have, seven years later. While it is true that I will not have to buy envelopes for the foreseeable future, I've also had to cart this box around with me every time I've moved in those seven years (three times). Additionally, as our condo is pretty small, I don't really have a place just for envelopes, so they just end up sitting in a closet, or, as they are now, on a stack of papers near my computer tower.

While I might have received a good deal, I've been stuck with these things for a long time, and I'll be stuck with them for even longer still.

Have you ever bought something like my envelopes, that seemed like a good deal, but ended up just taking up space? Let me know in the comments.

Daniel, I love the price point of the bulk deals, but as my wife is fond of reminding me, buying in bulk infringes on our lives due to our small living space. Still, it's hard for me to pass up a deal.